Hilltoppers' press takes Tigers out of the game

Wednesday

Dec 5, 2012 at 3:15 AMDec 5, 2012 at 7:00 AM

By Mike Whaleymwhaley@fosters.com

SOMERSWORTH — The Somersworth High School girls basketball team has a very good game plan, which is to hang its hat on defense. The Hilltoppers, however, will have to shoot the ball a lot better than they did Tuesday night against Farmington if they want to be a top team in Division III.

Somersworth did win the D-III game with its defense, 51-30, and is now 2-0. The Tigers dropped to 1-1.

The Hilltoppers built an 18-8 lead after the first quarter, but in the second quarter they shot a nightmarish 2 of 21 from the field, rushing many of their shots when they didn't need to — coach Jeff Francoeur said it looked like they were handling a hot potato. Fortunately, their defense created 14 turnovers and Farmington made just one of the six shots it took.

Allie Francoeur's 12-footer at the buzzer sent Somersworth into the locker room up 22-12. The Hilltoppers never looked back from there.

“Honestly, I was just looking to get a foul,” Francoeur said. “The I saw the open shot, so I took it.”

Francoeur and senior classmate Rachel Hill spearheaded a third-quarter assault that pushed the Somersworth lead to 41-19 after three stops with a 19-7 run. Hill scored nine of her game-high 21 points in the frame, while Francoeur added six of her 11. A majority of Hill's points came off the Somersworth press, which gave Farmington fits all night.

“We slowed it down,” Hill said. “At halftime coach told us to square up when we get it. We can't just look and shoot without even looking at the basket. Girls were squaring up and seeing their options and that helped a lot.”

Farmington's Shannon Cardinal converted a lay up that actually cut the Hilltopper lead to 22-14 to start the quarter, before Somersworth went on a 16-2 run over the next four minutes to put things away, 38-16.

Its press kicked into gear and capitalized on the Tigers' weakness handling the ball.

“We have to figure out who can get the ball over half court,” added Farmington coach Gary Noyes. “We really haven't figured that out yet. We struggled against teams that put a lot of pressure on us, like Somersworth did.”

Farmington made just four baskets, but did sink 22 free throws (out of 34). Junior McKenzie Lloyd the way with 14 points, making three of the team's four baskets. No other Tiger scored over four points.

Somersworth's fullcourt pressure forced 45 Farmington turnovers, including 37 over the first three quarters. The Hilltoppers turned the ball over 25 times.

“We're only as good as our defense,” coach Francoeur added. “We wanted to put that man pressure back on. ... I didn't want the Farmington forwards to control the game, so I knew we had to pressure the guards. Unfortunately that's their weakness and it's one of our strengths.”

Somersworth jumped out to an 18-8 lead in the first quarter as Hill led the way with eight points. The Tigers were within a point (8-7) after a Lloyd's baseline bucket (the team's only bucket of the quarter). But the Hilltoppers ended the frame on a 10-1 run to lead by 10.

“The turnovers really came back to bite us,” added coach Noyes. “We never able to really adjust and slow the game down like we wanted to.”